Matt Dellinger has worked as a journalist, digital archivist, podcast producer and host...
and is sometimes also a photographer, singer, civil war reenactor, and wedding officiant. He lives in Brooklyn.
Photo by Jonny Mack
Matt has written for The New Yorker, the Oxford American, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and has reported on transportation and planning for WNYC. He worked for ten years on staff at The New Yorker, first as an illustrations editor, and later as manager of the magazine’s early digital efforts, including the launch of Newyorker.com, the scanning of the complete print archive, and the creation of the earliest multimedia editorial content. He was the producer and host of The New Yorker Out Loud, the magazine’s first weekly podcast. Matt is the author of Interstate 69: The Unfinished History of the Last Great American Highway and is at work on his second book, about Brooklyn in the Civil War.
A Civil War Political Movement Reawakens — Complete With Capes
In 1860, the Wide Awakes mobilized against slavery and for Abraham Lincoln. A new collective is tapping into their spirit today.
The New York Times
September 15, 2020
Frederick Law Olmsted’s War on Disease and Disunity
The designer of Central Park championed a coördinated federal response to the public-health emergency caused by the Civil War.
The New Yorker
May 16, 2020
Interstate 69
Interstate 69: The Unfinished History of the Last Great American Highway (Scribner 2010) is an enlightening journey through the heart of America. With this epic tale of one vast and controversial road project, Matt Dellinger brings to life the country's complex political, social, and economic landscape. Eagerly anticipated by many as an economic godsend, I-69 has also been opposed by environmentalists, farmers, ranchers, anarchists, and others who question both the wisdom of building more highways and the merits of globalization. Part history, part travelogue through the many places the so-called NAFTA Highway would transform forever: from sprawling cities like Indianapolis, Houston, and Memphis to the small rural towns of the Midwestern rust belt, the Mississippi Delta, and South Texas. Interstate 69 reveals the surprising story of how the extraordinary undertaking began, and introduces the array of individuals who worked tirelessly for years to build the road—or to stop it.
“Whether I-69 is ever built or not, it has provided Matt Dellinger a good route into the middle of our country, a fascinating and often-neglected place. His story of an imagined road, its boosters and its discontents speaks eloquently of the deep changes shaking up America today. This is an affectionate, hard-won, and skillfully-made book, filled with the pleasures of original discovery.”
- Ian Frazier, author of Great Plains
Archive Work
Matt Dellinger has led major digital-archive initiatives for iconic brands. He created the online archive products of The New Yorker, Vogue, Esquire, Aperture, Aviation Week, and Maclean’s magazines, and has advised on and implemented digital asset management solutions and strategy for nonprofit clients including the Rockefeller Foundation, the Arcus Foundation, Saint Ann’s School, the Kinsey Institute, and God’s Love We Deliver.
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